Just one of several shots I took of the lovely variety of sea anemone, captured 6/29/11, at the beautiful Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in semi beautiful San Pedro, California. By semi beautiful, I mean attractive beach and beachfront property, but a second world downtown area at best. Picture taken using the aquarium setting on my Canon PowerShot point-and-shoot camera, followed by extensive postwork. A ZOOM would be to your distinct advantage. -------------------------- Sea anemones are a group of water-dwelling, predatory animals of the order Actiniaria; they are named after the anemone, a terrestrial flower. Sea anemones are classified in the phylum Cnidaria, class Anthozoa, subclass Zoantharia. Anthozoa often have large polyps that allow for digestion of larger prey and also lack a medusa stage. As cnidarians, sea anemones are closely related to corals, jellyfish, tube-dwelling anemones, and Hydra. A sea anemone is a polyp attached at the bottom to the surface beneath it by an adhesive foot, called a basal disc, with a column shaped body ending in an oral disc. Most are from 1.8 to 3 centimetres (0.71 to 1.2 in) in diameter, but anemones as small as 4 millimetres (0.16 in) or as large as nearly 2 metres (6.6 ft) are known. They can have anything from a few tens of tentacles to a few hundred tentacles. A few species are pelagic, and are not attached to the bottom; instead they have a gas chamber within the pedal disc, allowing them to float upside down in the water. Source: Wikipedia free encyclopedia. Again, I bravely ventured into the madcap environment of an aquarium, this one also infested by screeching, rude and undisiplined imps, gamins, urchins, scamps, and various scallawags. But, as Hillary Rodham Clinton would say, "it's for the children." Yeah, I'd like to see her try to take photos under these conditions. And, what's more, the parents, grandparents and pack leaders often condoned this behavior, even expressing delight and satisfaction as to the kids' overenthusiasm. Forget everyone else, I got mine! Oh, did I mention my being bumped when trying to snap a photo, or that my feet were sometimes run over by strollers? All this plus dim light and lots of reflections to contend with when taking photos. Easily the equivalent of hell week in college. The only redeeming feature of this experience was the relatively low one dollar admission and three dollar parking price. Sayonara, thankx for popping in, and for any and all favs and complimentary comments.